Monday, September 24, 2012

BUTT I DIGRESS

﻿Marge's Little Lulu #44 [February 1952] is a rarity among the comicbooks from my birth month of December 1951 in that I have actuallyread this issue. It was reprinted in Another Rainbow’s oversizedLittle Lulu Library in 1987.

Another Rainbow didn’t list credits, at least not in this volume ofthe library, and the Grand Comics Database also comes up short inthat regard. But it’s probably a pretty good bet that the storieswere written/laid out by John Stanley and finished/inked by IrvingTripp.

Here’s the deal with Lulu. She’s the nicest, smartest kid in hersocial circle. Tubby can be crafty and heroic, but he’s simply notin Lulu’s league. It’s obvious why girls loved Lulu, but I thinkboys liked her because she was an underdog who always came out ontop...and what kid hasn’t felt like an underdog at some time duringhis or her young life?

SPOILERS AHEAD

In “Mumps” (8 pages), the West Side Gang has seized the clubhouseof Tubby and the boys. The boys try various schemes to get rid oftheir rivals, but none work. Lulu offers to evict the West Sidersif Tubby and the guys will let her join their club. She does thisby faking mumps and scaring the young hoods away. Naturally, Tubbygoes back on his word...but Lulu turns the tables on him. She doeshave the mumps and now so do the boys.

In “The Apple Watcher” (6 pages), Tubby and his gang figure to takeadvantage of the hour Lulu will be watching Joe’s fruit stand andsteal apples and such. A concerned Lulu outfoxes them by leavingher dad’s fully-packed-with-tobacco pipe in the Fellers’ clubhouse.The boys can’t resist trying it and are soon too sick to carry outtheir planned raid.

“The Merry-Go-Roundup” (10 pages) is one of those delightful storieswithin a story in which Lulu entertains Alvin by telling him someoutlandish tale. In this case, it’s about a merry-go-round horsethat comes to life and merry-go-round horse rustlers. I love howLulu’s story unfolds. She’s making it up as she goes along, whichis what kids do, and Stanley conveys that brilliantly.

“Lulu’s Diry” is a two-page text page with illustrations featuringentries from our heroine’s diary. I almost never read text pagesin old comics, but I always read these clever efforts.

Tubby shines in “Riding the Pookle” (6 pages) in which he outfoxesthe West Side Gang before they can launch an attack on his group ofkids. Lulu would have been proud of him.

More vintage comic-book covers to come.

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Regular readers of my bloggy thing know I enjoy detective fictionset in or around my native Cleveland. The Milan Jacovich mysteriesby Les Roberts are among my favorites. They are relatively shortget-to-the-point novels in which characters age and sometimes leavethe series...and in which the Cleveland references are both accurateand delicious.

Whiskey Island [Gray & Company; $24.95] has the middle age Jacovichfeeling his years and working with an assistant. “K.O.” O’Bannion is a young Iraqi war veteran with a juvenile record who is trainingto become a private investigator. He’s socially awkward, somethingof a wise ache, managing anger issues, and good with his fists ifthe occasion arises. Which, this being a private eye novel, saidoccasion is certain to arise.

A crooked Cleveland councilman is about to go down hard on variousfederal charges, the end result of a long career brokering favorsand profiting from the payback thereof. Unless someone kills himfirst. The councilman hires Jacovich to protect him...which meansfinding out who on a long list of suspects is behind the attemptson the councilman’s life.

Adding to the mix is Detective Sergeant Toby Blaine, fresh from animpressive career as a Cincinnati cop. I won’t reveal exactly howshe stirs the mix, but I will say she’s a terrific new character and Ihope she stays around for many more books in the series.

Whiskey Island gets its starting point from real-life corruption inCleveland. Roberts has his own opinions about several of the real-life participants, convicted or not, and that comes through when hewrites their fictional counterparts. A knowledge of these cases isnot necessary for non-Cleveland readers, but it adds a neat layerfor those of us who follow the local happenings.

Roberts’ strengths are his characterization, his accurate settingsand the little touches inherent in those strengths. When Jacovichworries about getting another concussion or frets about changes inhis diet, it rings very true. He has been hit on the head quite abit in past novels and he does love good Cleveland food.

This new Jacovich mystery was a great way to unwind after my lastgarage sale of the year. I recommend it highly.

3 comments:

Oh, and you should try to find the Gil Disbro novels by James E. Martin. This was another hard-boiled Cleveland PI series that started up about the same time as the Milan Jacovich series, but didn't last as long.

I actually prefer Martin to Roberts, though both are quite good. I read a couple of the Saxon novels, but without my beloved Cleveland as a character I didn't really enjoy them. Martin's stories were so good that I would have happily read his stuff set anywhere. It is a shame Martin wrote so few, but amazing that he was so good even though he didn't really start writing until he was retired and in his 50s.

Even after I began reading super-hero titles in the late '50s I was still picking up occasional issues of Lulu. I have about a dozen (readable condition) copies still in my collection and will sometimes pull one out for the fun of it.

There is something great about reading a novel (or non-fiction book) that takes place in an area with which you are familiar. It was pretty easy back in my Brooklyn days with so many books taking place in Manhattan and the boroughs. Peter Straub set several of his horror/supernatural novels in Fairfield county where I lived and worked for several years. Now that I live in Orange County I'm finding the novels by James P. Blaylock (one of the pioneers of Steam Punk) a lot of fun. Many of them (fantasy & suspense) take place in the vicinity of the city of Orange (where I work) and other places in northern Orange County.